Frankentheo Zappamonk

Roland Barthes has died. Or so I just learned. I didn’t even know he was sick. But then, I’m about twenty-five years late in finding this out. I’ve been meaning to read something of his for some time now. Besides this fact, I have come to believe that Renquist was a hardcore nerd (not that there’s anything wrong with that, jurisprudentially-speaking).

But that’s not where I meant to begin at all. LGA is like a challenge. It throws down, gentle reader (by which I mean you, Bert) the gauntlet—“Just land here! I dares ya! Ah-Booga-booga-booga!” Ok, so a little rain in Dallas/Ft. Worth is all it takes to throw AA into psychotic spasms, shutting down every flight it can think of, like C3PO in the SW garbage compactor scene: ‘No, shut them ALL down!’.

Being accustomed to LGA’s sly gambits, a mere flight cancellation does not phase me. Within moments of returning to the gate following a peripatetic fool’s errand, somehow thinking I could find a copy of Richard Dawkins’ “The Blind Watchmaker” at an airport bookstore (I can dream, can’t I?), only to find that the flight is, no, not delayed as usual, but downright cancelled, I am all “Hello Moto” on the Razer (the ‘It’ phone) to my travel agent. The fellow-traveler fellow traveler next to me (I’m all ‘I haven’t been home in two weeks’ and she’s all ‘I haven’t been home since June’) tells me of a Continental flight into EWR tonight that still has some seats left. Wow, humans. They’re just super sometimes. Meanwhile, my agent is trying to sell me on the great AA flight out tomorrow leaving 11:50. Uhm, staying at the airport Marriott would be lots of fun and all, but can you please check Continental for me?

As Bill Cosby once said, I told you that story to tell you this one.

I can’t say that I approve of the whole ‘car’ thing, but at least I understand it. Your own personal pressurization chamber in the morning, de-pressurization chamber at night. And perchance to listen to some music. Finally, I come around to the point.

Thelonious Monk is great, and any day in which you don’t hear at least a little, is just that much wasted. But what is the link between “Monk’s Time” and the other CD I grabbed from last weekend’s drive-fest in Northern Georgia, Frank Zappa’s “Sheik Yerboutti?” Well, Monk is wonky, and Zappa’s goofy, but they both belong on the same side of the ping vs pong, gnip vs gnop, Pespsi vs Coke spectrum. And it’s a damn good side, too, with plenty-long tracks.